“Umm...”
Tatenashi, Kanzashi, and Maya stared, frowning, at the White Tail: Byakushiki’s third form, returned from Operation Swordbreaker on Christmas Day.
“Huh, something wrong with it?” Ichika had been assigned to coffee duty, and as he returned nonchalantly tried to get a feel for the situation.
“You see how different it looks? That’s nothing compared to how much the internals have changed.”
“It’s basically a black box... I’m not even sure how we’re supposed to do basic maintenance on it.”
“The weapons loadout’s been changed a lot, too. Yukihira Nigata is still there, but the particle cannon’s been removed, the shield is gone, and then there’s, well, that.” Maya raised an eyebrow at the extremely obvious energy wing now mounted on Byakushiki’s back, “From what we’ve been able to determine, it’s the same kind of field as Reiraku Byakuya. And it incorporates the O.V.E.R.S. too, so it’s likely to be far less of an energy load.”
“I’m curious about the new one-off ability, too...” Kanzashi thought out loud.
“That’s right! Exactly! The ability to reformat any IS? That’s dangerous! Too dangerous!”
As if that wasn’t enough, its joints were equipped with variable-sweep armor as well. Describing the White Tail meant basically writing an encyclopedic list of high-end features which had been seen on other IS, all wrapped up in one sleek package rather than the clunky armor pieces which were standard.
“So it really needs a more impressive name than White Tail.”
In response, Ichika hopped in, the armor folding around him almost skin-tight.
“Well, I did get this new status readout.” He gestured, opening up a projection window starting with the text ‘Byakushiki 3rd Form OURI.’ “That sure looks like its name to me.”
He then continued with preflight checks. Byakushiki’s responsiveness was far beyond its original levels, and it seemed almost like an extension of his own body; movements didn’t just feel swifter than before, they felt more natural, more right.
“Does it have any other new weapons, Ichika?” Tatenashi was, for once, legitimately curious about something.
“I’m not really sure about new weapons, but there is this new ‘Code White’ subsystem listed— Wait, huh?”
“What’s wrong?”
Ichika looked at the projection in confusion as it refused to scroll down.
“That’s weird, it’s not there now. Huh, was I just imagining it?” Sighing, he closed down Byakushiki, which dematerialized as always into a gauntlet on his right hand.
“Either way. We’re definitely going to have to take a closer look at Byakushiki. Charl’s IS, too.”
Rein Carnation. The world’s first dual-core IS. Who could know what capabilities that meant? And as much of an upgrade as it was from the Revive, that just meant a lot more fine-tuning for now. Two cores, though. Was its maximum output double the Revive’s? The Revive’s, squared? And would that be usable in combat, or just make it harder to control?
“Charl’s practicing in the third arena, isn’t she?” Ichika asked.
“Yeah. It should be fine, Laura and Ms. Orimura are helping her out.” Tatenashi paused in contemplation for a moment, then spoke. “I know! You should do a mock battle with her!”
“Are you sure?!”
“It’d be a great opportunity to learn just what your new IS can do.”
“Yeah... It’s important to get some combat flight hours in.”
“If we’re going with that, I’ll talk to Ms. Orimura about it. Ichika, you should head up to the arena.”
It seemed all present other than Ichika were in agreement, and he wasn’t going to argue. As he left, though, he suddenly yelped as a hand wrapped around a buttcheek and squeezed. “Gwuh?!”
“Hey there, hot stuff. How’s it hangin’?” It was, of course, Kagaribi Hikaruno, In her usual outfit of a school swimsuit-type IS suit, white lab coat, and pushed-up swim goggles. At least they’d taken away her fishing rod.
“Wh-what are you doing here?!”
“I had a few errands to take care of anyway, so I figured, why not get my hands on some beefcake?”
“What do you mean, beefcake?!”
“Ahahahah, don’t get so mad. Anyway, see you later!” Hikaruno disappeared as quickly as she’d arrived.
“What’s with her...”
Brushing the seat of his pants off, Ichika stepped into the third arena’s IS maintenance pit.